Tragic Remembrance
by abigailchase
Summary: With shaking hands, Roy took the picture and the CDR from Jean, eyes downcast. 'I will love you forever, please forgive me for what I'm about to do... Anita' read on back of the picture. Why had she done this? BASED ON A REALLIFE STORY. BE WARNED. RoyxOC.


This is an almost fully true story. I'm using fictional characters so as not to disturb one's memory, but I believe others should read this in remembrance or as a warning to recognize the signs of one's upcoming death or an upcoming tragedy. These are really the only details I, or any one else for that matter, knows about this young man's death. I'm changing events and guessing on what these people's feelings would be, because I don't dare ask the person who I'm basing the main character on for their thoughts or personal feelings, as it only happened on Monday/Tuesday. I hope that no one is offended by this.

**WARNING: This is based on a true occurrence in everyday life with events and such changed around. If you are disturbed by the thought of something such as this happening to a person, you may stop reading at any time, or just not read it at all. Thank you.**

**Disclaimer: Hiromu Arakawa owns all Fullmetal Alchemist characters. I own all others.**

**Tragic Remembrance**

As he walked into the building, everything was silent.

It was never silent.

'_What the hell is going on...?'_ he thought as he walked further in. People were crying, sobbing, having friendly condolences hugging them to possibly ease their obvious pain.

Yesterday it wasn't like this at all.

His eyes were already red and bloodshot from his tears following the previous day's events and his lack of sleep the night before.

"Roy…"

He turned, watching as his best friend came towards him amidst the hallway of weeping people.

"Maes, what's going on? Why-" His throat caught, and he had to halt in his words to swallow and clear his already constricting throat. "Why's everyone so upset…?"

"You haven't heard?" Maes questioned.

That alone sliced through Roy's mind like a warm knife going through butter.

"N-no…Maes, what happened…?" The backs of his eyes began to sting with tears.

"Go to the office then, Roy…th-they'll tell you…"

"Would…is it something bad…?" Roy's throat continued to constrict, swallowing heavily as the pain from yesterday returned full strength to his heart. He was beginning to get frightened of all the possibilities that this one answer could bring.

Maes gave a small nod, and Roy's heart sank deeply.

His friend's glasses had been removed from his face to reduce the chance of the lenses getting dotted with water, showing off his watery amber gaze.

"Would…would you come with me…?" Roy asked him quietly, almost begging, by the sounds of his tone.

Maes nodded again, going over as Roy turned, putting a supportive hand on his shoulder, leading him to the office.

He didn't even realize where they were going, possibilities, occurrences and different things that could have happened zipping in and out of his mind.

"Mr. Mustang."

He looked up with his dead midnight gaze, realizing that he and Maes had made it to the counselor's office.

"What can I do for you?"

It took him a few long moments to find his voice and remember how his vocal cords worked.

"What's going on…?"

"Sit down."

It took him a few moments, but he began to sit with some prompting from Maes, who took the seat beside him.

"Mr. Mustang, what I'm about to tell you will probably seem fake, but…"

"Tell me already, dammit," he hissed.

She sighed, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

"Mr. Mustang…last night, Mrs. Black came home from work to find her daughter's car in the driveway, but she was supposed to be renting a movie, like she'd told her mother she would be."

Roy swallowed. He listened, starting to shake. He hadn't been able to sleep the night before because his girlfriend, Anita Black, who was close to being his fiancée, had 'broken-up' with him the morning before. She had just said she wanted to take a break from their relationship, but she'd seemed a bit distant…

"Her mother approached the car. Anita was inside."

She had said it as though it explained everything.

For Roy's frazzled, confused mind, though, it didn't.

"And…?"

She sighed again, looking up at him. "She shot herself. She's dead, Mr. Mustang…"

Roy's heart seemed to stop then, his whole body growing numb.

"N-no…she…she can't be," he muttered, running a hand through his disheveled ebony hair.

She continued to speak, but he didn't seem to be listening. The tears began to fall from his eyes without any attempt from him to stop them, his jaw quivering, bottom lip trembling.

A small whimper escaped his throat a few moments later, and he felt arms go around him. Sobbing, his clung to whoever held him, and he finally heard the counselor's voice cease as he did so.

"Shhh…Roy, it'll be okay…"

"No, it won't! She's gone!"

He finally recognized the voice to be Maes, tears falling down his face.

A few minutes later Maes sat back once he had quieted, his head hanging mournfully, dismally.

"Mr. Mustang, if there's anything I can do…"

"Nothing you could do could change the fact that she's gone and I didn't even see it coming…"

"Was she acting strange at all?"

"…she…she seemed distant yesterday morning…when she told me she wanted to take a break from our relationship…I…she went…and…and visited her father…on Sunday…she hasn't seen him since she was twelve…I think…that they got into a fight…"

"Amelia Roan said that Anita returned to her some CD's she never thought she'd get back."

"And…she went to Casey's house right before school Monday…to give back a few movies and a model she was using for a project…and…and…she…her room…is always messy…dirty…but she cleaned it…"

"Anything else? Anything at all?"

Roy shook his head, his throat constricting. He was shaking, still, not wanting to believe a single word he was being told.

It was all blasphemy, it had to be…

"All right. I'll be here, if you need someone to talk to, Mr. Mustang."

Roy nodded, hearing, but at the same time not listening to, her words, as he slowly moved to his feet.

"Mr. Mustang, you can go home…"

"No…" His voice sounded dead, mournful, horrifyingly quiet. "I have to face school sometime…I might as well do it now…"

She nodded as she watched Maes stand and walk out behind him.

The students in the hallway kept giving him sympathetic looks and saddened glances, which only proved to worsen his already strange mood each time he saw them.

He stopped as someone got into his path and he looked up, gaze dead, unemotional.

"Roy."

"Jean…"

"Uhm…"

"What?"

He saw Jean visibly wince at hearing his tone and hated it.

The tears were still falling unguarded from his eyes, down his stubby face, not having shaven for a few days.

"Uh…I…I saw Anita last night…she drove to my place…and gave me these to give to you…"

He swallowed as he handed the items to Roy.

With shaking hands, Roy's sobs returned, his chin wrinkling as the tears fell in faster procession down his cheeks. One of the two objects was a CD-R, like they used in video cameras.

He couldn't help but wonder what was on it…

Looking down at the other piece that Jean had handed him to see a picture of him and her at a restaurant, their latest and last date, where he had bought her a marvelous ring, which would only have been added onto when he bought her an engagement ring, which he had planned to do that weekend.

He turned it over, and that made him fall to his knees, Jean and Maes going down after him to kneel beside him as he started to sob.

"What, Roy? What's wrong?" Maes asked, a hand going up and down his friends back.

Jean only pointed to the picture in his hand and Maes read the words written in Anita's hand, in red, the print shaky, not neat, as she usually would have done.

'I will love you forever, please forgive me for what I'm about to do. –Anita'

"Oh, God, Roy…" Maes whispered, the tears now falling down his face again as he put his arms around Roy again.

Clinging to his jacket as though it were his lifeline to sanity, which it probably was, Roy whimpered as he heard the bell ring.

"Are you going to go to class?" Jean asked, and Roy gave a small nod, forcing his sobs to calm.

"Really?" Jean's tone was astonished. "You're kidding…you can't go to class like this, man, you know that…"

"I'm going…please don't stop me," Roy whispered as he moved to his feet, with Maes' help.

"I have the same classes he does, I'll watch him," Maes told Jean, and he nodded.

"I have to get to class, Roy…be strong, all right? We can have a cry fest second bell, all right?"

Roy managed a small nod. He hated this.

Maes led him down the hallway and towards the bandhall, and he didn't want to go there. The band director sometimes made snide comments about things, and this was one thing that he didn't want to hear his thoughts about.

When they arrived, he sat down, leaving his trombone in its case. There was no way he could play it today.

When the bell rang for class to actually start, the announcements came on, and everyone stood for the pledges. He stayed in his seat.

No one objected.

The moment of silence rolled around and the only thing that he could think of was Anita. That was it.

He forced down his sobs, biting his lip as tears continued to fall down his cheeks.

The next thing he knew, the director was coming out of his office.

"I'm sure you all heard about what has happened to one of our most loyal band members, by now."

Roy looked up at him, tears filling his gaze. Why did he have to say this now?

"I just want to let you all know how saddened I am that such a tragedy as this has happened. I also want to let the jokesters in this room know that if you make any comments about anything such as this, you're probably going to have your asses hauled out back behind the building after class and have the crap beaten out of you. I'm not joking, and no one should be about this, either."

Everyone was silent, no one moving at all. Everything was quiet, the only sound coming from Roy's breathing, the indication that he was trying to keep his tears at bay once more.

"I just…"

Roy looked back up at him, then over at the empty seat that should have been Anita's in the first row. The man's tone had changed drastically

"On Friday, I turned off the recording equipment…Yesterday, I was debating with myself whether or not to turn it on…but it was Monday, and we needed to play and it takes a while to turn it back on…and…" He reached up behind his glasses, wiping at his eyes.

"And I decided I would turn it on after class so we could record class tomorrow, but yesterday…" He looked down, then back up, reaching up to take off his glasses completely. His voice was beginning to catch and hitch, making him stutter with the effort to keep from crying.

"Y-yesterday was the first day…th-the first time that…that Anita nailed her part completely…sh-she never managed to play her solo perfectly…and yesterday she nailed it…she got it right…for the first time and—and I wish that I would have turned on the recording equipment…so that…damn it, I'm starting to cry…"

He reaching up to wipe tears from his eyes, and looked over to see Roy staring up at him with tears streaming down his cheeks, listening intently from his seat in the back row.

"I wish that I could-could have recorded it…so that…I could have made a copy…and…and giv-given it to…to her parents…" He had to stop, reaching up to put a hand over his eyes, his shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

Roy knew that Anita was one of his favorite students. This was hard for them all, especially him. Why had she left him alone like this?

"All right…"

He looked back up as the director finished.

"Are you going to be all right, Mr. Davis?"

"Yes…yes…all right, everyone, concert F…it's going to be different without the top flute, but…we'll manage…"

Maes, who hadn't gotten his trombone out either, looked over at Roy as the others started to play.

"Hey…you going to be okay, man?"

"…I still can't make…make myself believe…that all this…is real…I can't make myself believe that she's really gone…it just…it all seems fake…"

"I know, Roy…but you'll make it through this…you've got us, of course you will…"

XxXxXxXxXxXx

At lunch, Roy couldn't stop sobbing. He had sat with her alone at a table in the cafeteria, and just her not being there beside him was bad enough. He held on tightly to the CD-R and the picture, making it look as though he would go crazy if he let it go.

He could never let her go.

People kept coming up to him and offering their saddened remarks of good intentions, and he knew they were only trying to help, but every time they did, it just made it seem as though it was worse, that he was loosing a fighting battle.

Loosing the battle in his mind where his reality was fighting his denial.

When the bell rang for lunch to end, he slowly stood and went to his next class, Maes right there, Jean behind the two of them. When they entered the computer classroom, Maes went over to the teacher and asked her a question as Jean sat him down.

Roy looked around, and couldn't help but question what it was that his best friend was asking her.

She nodded, her gaze soft and gentle as she did, standing up to go into the back room and come out with a small box.

Maes nodded in, appearingly, thanks as he turned to walk back to their little corner of the room as the others in the classroom were doing gathering around one computer to do something.

"What, Maes?" Roy asked before he had even opened his mouth.

Sighing, he looked down at Roy's hand, where the young man was still clutching at the CD-R that he had given him that morning.

"Here," he murmured, reaching into the box to take out a video camera, handing it to him after taking a battery out of the box and putting it in.

"Put the disk in. We'll watch it with you," Jean told him quietly, putting a supportive hand on his friends back, Maes doing the same.

"I-I can't," Roy muttered, looking up at him. His gaze was heartbroken, and he looked it.

His heart had been broken the day before, and he'd come to school with some semblance of a heart that he'd tried to fix the night before, but now it was completely shattered, never to be picked up again.

His gaze was mournful, still unbelieving, but if one were to look closely, they would be able to tell that it was true.

"Come on, man…we're not going to let you watch it by yourselves tonight."

"Why not?" Roy hissed angrily at them, both flinching.

They didn't speak.

"You think I'm going to off myself," Roy muttered as he looked at the two of them. "How the hell could you even think that?" he hissed, and Maes and Jean looked down in shame.

"I promised Anita I would never do that without thinking yesterday," Roy hissed.

_She came up to him, a distanced, almost dead, look on her face._

"_Hey, sweetheart," Roy whispered, putting his arms gently around her._

"_Hi."_

_He pulled away slightly, gaze confused, as he looked down at her. All he saw was the red lock of her curly hair, her blue eyes hidden and downcast to the cement._

"_What's wrong?" he asked her softly._

"_Roy…promise me…that if something happens, you will never do the unthinkable…"_

"_What're you talking about, Anita?"_

"_Promise me that, no matter what, you'll never do something that – …that you'll never kill yourself…"_

"_What the hell, Anita? I could never do that! What's wrong with you today? Are you all right?"_

_The girl didn't respond, only stood there._

Then the horror and heartbreak had come…

"Roy," Maes whispered. "Come on…please, watch it…we don't think that…"

"And how'm I supposed to know that?" Roy hissed.

"You only have our word."

At that, Roy shrank back a bit, hating the tone that Maes had just used.

Jean was sitting back, eyes downcast to the floor, his blond starburst hiding his clear blue gaze.

"But…"

"Roy, we loved her too…"

Tears came to Roy's eyes as he heard that.

"I…I know…" he whispered.

"Then why won't you listen to us?"

"Because, I…she…" Roy looked up, his gaze torn between mourning and disbelief.

"Roy, you have to realize that she chose this for herself."

"How do you know that?" Roy hissed. "She…she could…could have been forced…"

"No, Roy…"

"I…she was so happy lately…"

"I know."

"She…she must have been-been hiding it…"

"Why would she do this…I…I still can't believe that this is really happening…she can't…she can't really be dead…"

"She can be, Roy. I know it's hard for you to think that, but…you have to believe that this is the truth. You think we'd play a joke like this on you?"

"No…"

"Watch the video, Roy."

With tears in his eyes, Roy finally managed to nod as he took the video camera.

He took out the CD-R from the hard case and put it in.

He watched the screen as, with a shaking hand, he pressed the play button.

First, all he saw was light; then, the camera swung around and was set down. It was her room.

Tears fell freely down his face as he watched as a hand moved in front of the camera, and then he had a pair of clear blue eyes staring at him with that same distanced look that he'd seen the night before.

There was a smile on her face, though.

"Roy…"

Hearing her speak again, he whimpered, and the whole room went silent and looked over to him as he watched the video camera.

He vaguely felt a hand on his back of support, but didn't acknowledge it.

"I gave this to Jean because it would have been too hard to have given this to you in person. I broke up with you this morning to distance myself from anything and everything. I didn't want to leave anything behind."

"Oh, God…" Roy whimpered, not hearing the other students in the room come over behind him as they started to watch the video camera over his shoulder.

"I love you, Roy, so much. I always will. I know that you were planning to propose to me on Saturday night. That's why you asked me to go out with you on Saturday. I'm sorry that I didn't wait, but then it would have been even more painful for both of us." She then looked around the room. "I have to make this quick. Mother thinks that I'm on the other end of town and I have to bring this to Jean…"

She kissed her hand, then blew it towards the camera.

Roy let out a strangled sounding sob as he watched her come closer.

"Please forgive me, Roy…I love you, so much. Please forgive me for what I'm about to do…I love you so much, Roy. Goodbye…"

He almost dropped the camera, but felt a hand come around his to help support to camera. His eyes went down to watch the hand holding the camera and the back of his, and his watery gaze followed the arm up to see that Maes was the one who was hold the camera steady.

"M-Maes," Roy whimpered, and he felt Maes' arms come around him as he sobbed.

"It'll be okay, Roy. Not now, of course not now, but it will be…"

"I don't know, Maes…I don't think-think…it ever will," Roy whispered when he forced his sobs to stop. He felt people behind him and turned to see that the class was around him.

"What…?" he asked, not even bothering to wipe his tears.

"We wanted to show you something…" one of them said.

"What, Edward?" Roy asked as he watched him take the computer next to his seat and log onto the school network.

"We did this for you…and Anita…" Ed whispered as he pulled up a program.

"It's a page for the yearbook…"

Roy leaned forward to watch, swallowing, as he read over it, forcing his tears down. He didn't think he had any more tears, but he was wrong.

It was a picture of him and Anita, at lunch, with his arm around her. She was smiling widely up at the camera as he grinned, holding up a coke in a way that showed he was enjoying himself. Beneath the picture were words.

_Anita Black  
R.I.P.  
April 12, 1988-May 14, 2007  
Save Us a Seat up There_

With tears in his eyes as he read it over, he looked to them, nodding.

"Do you want to add anything to it?"

Roy gave a small nod, moving to take Ed's seat as he stood. He reached up and typed beside it.

_You face, so pure and gentle,  
Held an innocence I have never before seen  
The first time I met you.  
You were taken from me as quickly as I met you.  
I love you now, and always,  
As you said to me,  
My Lovely Anita…  
- Roy_

He gave them all a mournful smile as he moved away from the computer, and they nodded.

"Thank you," he whispered. "It-it's what she would have wanted…thank you…"

They all nodded. "You're welcome."

XxXxXxXxXxXx

A while later, as Maes walked with him towards their next class, he started to slow as they passed a group of people talking at their lockers.

"You're not sad for her at all?"

"Nope. Not a single feeling of sadness or remorse for it at all."

"How can you say that!?"

"Suicide's can go to hell, man. Anita killed herself, and that's suicide, so I believe that she's in hell, with a lot of other people."

The next thing Maes knew, Roy was no longer beside him, but had slammed the person speaking against the closest locker.

"What did you just say?" Roy hissed at him angrily.

"Suicide's can go to hell. They all can."

"How can you say that?! If someone's life is so screwed up that they think that there's no way out, they will be forgiven," Roy hissed.

"Not what I think."

Roy pulled a fist back, and Maes' eyes widened.

"Roy, stop!" He ran over, grabbing his friend's hand. "Let him go."

"But Maes, do you hear what this-"

"Yes, I heard what he said. That's his opinion. We know otherwise. Let him go. Please."

Slowly, Roy's grip released from the boy's throat.

"You better watch your back, Greed," Roy hissed as he stepped back. "Because if I hear you say anything like that again, I'm going to kick your ass."

XxXxXxXxXxXx

**Days Later**

At the funeral, everyone was shocked to see that the casket for Anita was open.

Roy hadn't been able to bring himself to go to her wake, though others told him he should have been glad that he didn't go. He didn't think so.

He thought that it was weak, that he was weak, to have not gone. It was his own girlfriends wake, and he couldn't bring himself to go and see her like that.

They had said that she shot herself in the head, and that it had never made it all the way through. He didn't want to believe them at all.

When he made it to the funeral service, he slowly made his way forward to the casket.

Her face as so pale, yet, at the same time, so lovely and peaceful. He could see that they had put in fake red, curly hair in the place where she'd shot herself. So she had…

There were tears in his eyes as he reached a hand forward to place it on her cheek.

"Sweetheart…" he whispered, caressing her delicate skin. "Why…why did you do it…"

They had never found a note, anywhere, not even in her flute case in her band locker.

Nothing at all to explain her rash actions.

Nothing.

He wished that she would open her eyes, sit up and scream, "Gotcha!" so that everything would be okay…but it wasn't…

He reached down to her hand and pulled out a brilliant, lovely diamond ring from his pocket.

"Sweetheart, I know you wanted this. And I know you would have said yes, so…here. Keep it with you forever," he whispered, taking the engagement ring to place it on her finger, gently laying it back down in its place.

She was in her letterman jacket and her favorite shirt, with a pair of blue jeans. She looked just as she had on their first date, except for a few rings and bands on her fingers and the small wing necklace he gave her with a single angel wing on the silver chain.

He wore the angel's other around his neck, and wouldn't let it go for dear life.

In his wallet was the picture she had written her last message on to him. He wouldn't let that go, either.

Her hands were wrapped around a single red rose, which she had claimed to be the most heavenly flower in the whole world, one that she always had to have in her room.

Next to her head in the casket was a bottle of her favorite wine, an expensive red grape wine, that they had had a few weeks ago when he brought her out to dinner at an rich-type restaurant. On her other side was a small group of necklaces that she loved and wore all of them almost everyday.

Beneath them was a poem that Roy had written to her, the one she had loved the most, and it wrenched his heart to see that. It would be with her forever…

The tears finally fell past his guard and he started to sob, Maes coming up behind him to walk him away from the coffin as they moved to close and seal it before they started the ceremony.

All during it, he didn't listen, feeling numb everywhere.

The next thing he knew, it was time for them to get up and follow as they carried the casket away and towards the hearse. He didn't listen or watch what was going on as they followed it to the cemetery.

He didn't listen to anything at all as they prepared to lower it into the grave once all the talking was done, and he reached over, just as they were about to lower it.

He stopped them for a moment, and went over to it.

He traced a small heart on the surface, whispering, "I love you…so much," before stepping back so they could start to lower the casket for the last time.

They started to cover it and he threw in a single rose. She had loved roses, more than almost anything, as he remembered back at the funeral home.

When the shovel men finally completed their task, people moved forward with flowers and he watched as everyone but Maes and Jean turned to walk away.

Even her mother couldn't bear to stay any longer.

He went closer to the grave, falling to his knees beside it to trace his name over the marble headstone.

"Sweetheart…Anita…I love you so much…I do forgive you for what you did…if you were so upset about your life, then you did the right thing. I just wish you would have asked me about it first…I'm so sorry I couldn't help you…goodbye, Anita…I love you…"

As they walked away, he felt as though he were being watched, but realized he'd have that feeling always. It was just Anita, making sure that he kept his promise.

And like he had promised, he would.

Always.

_Fin._


End file.
